


Death With Dignity.

by TheDarkestMindWithin



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Complete, Dark, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Implied Kylo Ren/Rey, Kylo Ren & Ben Solo are Twins, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Sad, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-24 20:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20712014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkestMindWithin/pseuds/TheDarkestMindWithin
Summary: Ben Solo visits his mother one last time.Complete.





	Death With Dignity.

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober Prompt: Character Death.
> 
> Without Beta.

* * *

It had been months since he had last visited, work had been the main culprit behind his absence but his cowardice couldn't be ignored either. The birth of his second daughter prompted his visit. He didn't want to miss the chance for the two to meet, as much as it pained him to be so realistic.

They drive through the sleepy town where his adolescence had been spent, edging into forest and isolation, his mother had liked the quiet and solitude, she hadn't had quiet before she had retired so she took as much of it as she could when she finally did. Rey sits in the seat besides him, her hand on his as she watches the trees go slowly past and the sky overhead greys. A storm brewing. Ben pulls the car to a stop when they've driven up the gravel pathway and are outside the large house where his mother and father resided.

Their children asleep in the backseats. They're parked outside for less than two minutes before the front door opens and Ben's brother is walking down the porch steps to greet them.

He's big like Ben and has the same long nose and big ears, the long black locks that frame his face pulled up into a messy bun. He's barefoot in plain grey sweats and an old black top with clusters of moth holes splattered around it. He makes it work.

Unlike Ben, Kylo doesn't have a long running scar over his right brow and over his eye and along his cheek, he doesn't have a permanent scowl tugging at the right corner of his mouth, not that Ben smiled much before he got the scar.

They get out of the car and Rey is quickly pulled into a tight hug by Kylo, she smiles as she embraces him. She'd always loved her Solo boys.

"Long time," Kylo smiles as he pulls away from his sister-in-law, she's tiny when stood between the two huge men.

"You're always welcome to come visit." Rey replies as Kylo laughs, curling a stray hair of Rey's around his finger before tucking it behind her ear, turning his attention to his stoic twin standing by the car door, watching the two interact.

Studying everything. The soldier in him, Kylo thinks with more than a little sadness.

"Glad you could come." He says without letting on his thoughts, Ben tries to muster a smile but fails and Kylo knows it's harder for Ben than it is for him to be here. No matter what anyone said they both know that Ben's come to say goodbye. They look at each other for a few moments before Rey moves to pull open the back door of the car, revealing three sleeping children when she does.

"You don't mind taking Milo in?" Rey asks Kylo as both he and Ben come to take a sleeping child into the house, Kylo shaking his head as she hands him the sleeping three-year-old, his twin sister being more awake than Milo was handed to Ben. Rey taking their youngest daughter.

"I cleared the two guest bedrooms up, there's a crib too." Kylo says as they climb the stairs to the second floor of the home they had spent their teens in, Ben and Rey following dutifully behind as they reach the first bedroom. It had previously been Ben's but had been converted to a guest room when he left home when he was seventeen. He didn't think more about it as Kylo pushed open the door. He had cleaned it up.

Fresh sheets and cleaned furniture, twin beds by either wall, opposite the large bay window overlooking the back yard, Ben and Kylo settled the twins in their beds, making sure they were sound asleep before Kylo lead them into the next bedroom, where Rey and Ben would be sleeping during their stay.

The crib was a few feet from the right side of the bed, Rey's side, she smiled at the fact he had remembered and kissed her baby sweetly before settling her in amongst the cuddly toys and blankets nestled in the crib. Kylo having obviously taken care to make sure the crib was suitable for the three-month-old.

"Mum's sleeping, she had chemo this morning so it usually takes it out of her, I made coffee and some food. Hungry?" He's on the edge of the room, watching Rey as she gazes at her daughter, Ben's staring at the space between the bed and the crib, trying not to think while his hand balls into a fist. Rey hums in agreement once she's satisfied the baby won't wake and leads the way out, Ben and Kylo following.

The house is quiet as they walk past the twins and back down the stairs into the kitchen on the right. It's warmer than the rest of the house. Kylo's bare feet pad along the tile floor as he goes to reboil the kettle, Rey looks at the pictures pinned to the fridge and over the noticeboard above the breakfast table, pictures of the twins accompanied by pictures of Kylo and Ben, they're sister Kaydel and Han, their dad. She wishes she'd brought a picture of the baby to put up.

There's pictures of Rey up too, she's slightly surprised Leia kept her up at all.

Rey's only a kid in them, ten, eleven, twelve. She's got short hair and scraped knees that match Kylo's, he's in nearly every single one that Rey's in, their young faces beam off of the old photos. Childhood best friends. Ben's there later on, a sulky seventeen-year-old, lanky like Kylo, but he only glares where Kylo grins.

Rey and Ben, childhood sweethearts.

There's a torn and tattered one in the corner of the board, nearly completely hidden by photos of the twins and Han on holiday and Kaydel and Ben and Kylo, but Rey recognises it, even if there is only a part of Kylo's hand and her cheek visible, she pulls it back.

Kylo and her, the summer Ben had enlisted and left them, they found comfort in each other that year.

She remembers kissing him that day, in the pouring rain, her cheeks wet from tears as well as raindrops. Rey remembers the way Kylo had tasted on her lips, cigarette smoke and whiskey, he doesn't smoke anymore.

"Chow's ready." Ben says calling Rey's attention back as Kylo and he place plates of sandwiches down on the table along with mugs of coffee and a mug of decaf tea for Rey. She sits between them.

"What time will mum be awake?" Ben asks when conversation fails to come and a part of the food has been eaten. They all saw the photo of Rey and Kylo.

"An hour or so, I'll take her some food and her meds." Ben nods and bites into his second sandwich, Rey's breasts ache, signalling that a feeds due. She takes her tea and food and leaves for the bedroom, Ben and Kylo remain at the table. Lapsed into quiet.

"Dad's dropping off Kay." Kylo says, looking at Ben, waiting for him to talk.

"He should be back in a few hours." Ben nods along but still doesn't say anything, much to Kylo's frustration.

"She's said goodbye, as has dad, we don't think she's gonna make it to the end of the week." Ben chews and swallows his food, sips his coffee as he wishes for something stronger in it's place. He doesn't react to Kylo's words, much to his twin's frustration.

"Y'know, Rey told me you didn't talk much anymore," Kylo gets up out of his seat, plate and cup in his hands as he walks to place them in the sink.

"I feel sorry for her, being chained down by a cripple - " Ben's on his feet in a second, the chair slamming to the floor from the force as he glared at his brother with hands balled into fists and heaving chest, Kylo sees how terrifying Ben must have been in the army.

"Daddy?" Her voice is quiet and tired and draws both men's attention away from the other. She's stood in the doorway with her hair messed up from sleep and her yellow wellies still on her feet, Ben's walking to her immediately.

No longer the man still at war but rather the father at peace.

"Hey, you remember uncle Kylo?" He says softly, scooping up the three-year-old in his arms as he walks back over to Kylo whose leaning against the counter, smiling as he waves. She'd grown so much since he last saw her. She nods shyly into Ben's shoulder.

"Hey, Leo." Kylo smiles as Ben kisses the crown of her head and adjusts the girl against his hip.

"My dad has scars." Leo says quietly, peeking out from Ben's hair at Kylo who smiles as he glances between Ben and her.

"Yeah, he does." Kylo agrees.

"Where's Milo? He still asleep?" Ben asks, drawing Leo's attention away from Kylo as he turn to head out the kitchen door.

Kylo watches them go, picks up the chair and clean up the plates and cups left. He preps the meds she's due and fixes up some food, not that she's eating much nowadays. He pushes the thought away and goes upstairs, the bedroom door's shut but he hears Ben talking to Leo and Milo as he passes, Rey's in her room with the door open and her long hair thrown up into a bun. She's singing and sketching in her notebook, he smiles at the dog eared paper.

"Still going around with it then?" He leans against the doorway of the bedroom, smiling a little with amusement when Rey jumps and saps the book shut, turning to glare at Kylo as he tries to keep from laughing too loudly, he doesn't want to draw watchdog Ben along, nor does he want to spill the coffee in his hand or the sandwiches.

"Still having difficulty knocking." Rey snaps back, earning a bigger grin from Kylo as he shrugs, nodding to his full hands earning a huff and eye roll from Rey, he knows she's not really angry. He wants to ask about what she's drawing but Ben's walking down the hallway so he doesn't.

"Taking this stuff to her?" He asks, his voice militant as he glances between Rey and him, he's always watching the space between the two. Kylo half thinks it would be worth investing in some tape measures to make sure he's always at least five feet from Rey but he knows it would only make Ben angrier. Not that Rey wouldn't find it funny.

"Take Leia with you, I think she'd like to meet her namesake." Rey chimes in, smiling as she gets up from the bed and goes over to the crib, picking up the little girl and walking back to Ben, smiling as he takes the tiny child into his big hands, Kylo wonders what she must have looked like only a few hours old in Ben's hands. A toy? Maybe.

They kiss, brief and chaste before Ben pulls back and leads the way down the rest of the hallway towards his parents bedroom, Kylo follows dutifully behind him. He tries to ignore the twist reaction his gut gives when he witnesses their kiss. Ben opens the door carefully.

The room is dark with the thick black curtains drawn, mum's wheelchair sits by the bed with all the rest of the medical equipment, oxygen, pain relief, obs and more that Ben doesn't want to think too deeply about.

She's sleeping in the centre of the large bed, Ben hates how she looks.

A shadow of how she looked months earlier.

A skeleton of how she looked years ago. He shuts out those memories, the ones of his youth, where she laughs and smiles and her cheeks are full of colour and her body healthy.

Not this form laying before him, skin and bones. Sallow and gaunt. Death.

"Mum? Ben's here." Kylo says softly as he comes round to Leia's bedside, leaving Ben standing with the baby at the foot, she stirs and moans, Kylo presses a few buttons and she sighs, pain relief, maybe. He shushes the baby when she fusses in his arms, she doesn't like the dark, like him.

"Ben?" He voice is hoarse and quiet as she frowns and opens her eyes, thin slits. Her eyelashes having all fallen out, she blinks as Kylo places a pair of glasses on her to help, his back straightens as her face twists with confusion and then recognition.

"Oh!" It's barely louder than her voice but it's as if she's yelled, Ben smiles although it's tight and unsure. She reaches a frail bony hand out for Ben, he comes closer and takes it into his own, tears well as her cold flesh touches his warm hand.

"Oh, my beautiful boy!" Leia coos to her son, smiling a thin stretched smile that looks exhausting, he leans down and hides his face in her hands, cries as her fingers curl through his hair, Kylo stands on the edges and watches. Silent and still.

The baby cries in his arms and Leia hesitates, Ben pulls back and reveals the tiny creature to his mother. Her namesake.

"Oh my goodness!" Leia says, her voice delighted despite the weight of everything else, she reaches her fingers to the baby's cheeks and smiles as she gazes at her grandma.

"We meant to come sooner but - " Leia shushes her son as she delights in her second granddaughter, knowing how lucky she is to have even seen her before -

"What did you name her?" Her question is accompanied by laboured coughs that earn pills being handed to her by Kylo who looks at the baby in Ben's arms with an unreadable expression.

"Leia." A moment of silence falls on them, Leia gazing at her granddaughter with devotion as her sons watch with grief. Ben makes sure his mother holds his daughter, takes photos the two and some with Kylo as well before Rey joins them with the twins.

Leia doesn't mention the pain she's in and she can almost forget it as she looks at her sons and grandson and granddaughters all around them, she wishes Kaydel could have stayed but she knows that this isn't for her daughter to do and Han, the foolishly devoted man, would never do as she wished. No, it was better that her boys were with her now.

She delights in all the gibberish stories Milo and Leo tell her, relishes in the conversation and banter that flow between her sons and Rey.

Rey who acted as the glue between them. She smiles thankfully at her when she takes the children away after a few hours.

"Do you want to sleep, mum?" Kylo asks as Ben adjusts her pillows and makes sure her duvet and blankets are all tucked in, she smiles as she shakes her head, her eyes drifted shut.

"No, I'm fine." She says quietly, a hand in each of her sons hands.

"Can we do anything else?" Ben offers, his lips against his mother's frail knuckles as she opens her eyes as memorises the way the two look, side-by-side after so many years. Her heart swells as she sighs. Eyes shutting once more.

"Take me to the beach." She requests, her voice gentle as she shifts fractionally in her bed, the morphine's edge slipping for the pain to return once more. Leia found herself more than a little exhausted by the constant pain.

"The beach?" Kylo's voice is confused enough for both of them but that doesn't falter Leia's smile as she nods.

"I want to go to the beach, one last time. See the sunset, feel the sand between my toes." She smiles like a schoolgirl at the last part, oh how she missed the beach. Simply feeling the wind on her face as the tide came in. Ben and Kylo look at each other as if she's crazy and maybe she is.

"No, mum, we can't you're - " Ben trails off, shaking his head as Kylo silently agrees, Leia smiles despite them.

"I'm dying, yes, but I'm not dead yet." Leia says plainly.

"You will be if we take you to the beach." Kylo shoots back, making Leia laugh and then cough, splats of blood in her tissue by the end of it. Another reminder of time running out.

"You're no fun." She says once the coughing has finished and she's tucked away the tissue out of sight.

"Fun or not, we're not taking you anywhere." Ben says finally, shaking his head at his mother as he fights all that he's been ignoring, the reality that's presenting itself before the,.

"Ben," His mother says, in the voice she had used when he had been a small boy, stealing cookies from the tray in the kitchen before he was allowed. Scolding with a soft motherly edge, she had always told him to wait, despite giving him the cookie he had tried to sneak away with. The reminder twists his chest.

"No." He says adamantly, despite them both knowing he had lost and she would get her wish.

"Come on, watch the sunset and live a little." She says, as if encouraging him to go ask to join in with the other kids in the playground. He tries to keep his answer but fails.

"Just the sunset." He says, as if it would make a difference, Leia smiles and nods seriously.

"Just the sunset." She promises, smiling as he and Kylo begin getting her chair ready for their impromptu outing.

They leave Rey at home with the children, waiting for Han to return home after dropping of Kaydel. They drive slowly to the beach, through the quiet town, the clouds are thick grey by now, the storm threatening to come at any moment, the sky over the beach is still patchy enough to see the sunset. They set up deckchairs a little away from the water, Leia wrapped up warm in a big jumper and coat, two blankets and a hot water bottle, the twins in padded black coats and thick boots.

Leia smiles as she watches the sky change from blue to pink to orange. Darker and darker. Kylo pokes at the sand with a stick laid near him while Ben holds his mother's glove clad hand and watches her watch the sky. He'd always admired his mother and her ability to just be.

"This," Leia begins, her voice low and hoarse as she reaches out to take Kylo's hand, drawing his attention with his hand.

"Has always been what I wanted, my boys," She takes their hands and puts Kylo's in Ben's, closing his fingers around his brothers as they look at each other and then at their mother.

"Back together." She leans her head back against her chair and sighs, her hands resting on the two over her lap.

"I love you." Kylo says lowly, knowing it's time as tears fill his eyes, looking at his mother with nothing other than love, she smiles at him, leans over with just enough energy to kiss his lined forehead.

"I love you, remember to be strong." She says to him softly, reaching up to take his hair out to frame his face, he looks younger with it down. Kinder. She turns to Ben whose looking at her with urgency, as if he won't get enough time to say what he has to but they both know what needs to be said, they've had the conversation a million times in their heads.

"I'm sorry for being - " He cuts off, his throat too choked to get the words out, she smiles kindly and shushes him, hugging him close. Her brave soldier.

"A teenager? No, never apologise for that." She says firmly, sighing as she leans back into her chair, her boys close.

"Love you, mum." She slips away on the beach under the sunset with the sand between her toes.

They call Rey once they're done sobbing, they don't say anything, the line crackles for several moments before Rey finally tells them to come home. They both carry her body back to the car, settle her cold wrapped up body into the back seat before they climb into the front and start the slow drive back, it starts raining somewhere before they're in the car. Both Ben and Kylo soaked before they're settled into their seats.

Neither speak as Ben drives.

"The twins." They're close now, fifteen or twenty minutes away from the house. The rain thuds over the car as they drive through the muddy forest. Ben watches the road as Kylo looks at him.

"Huh?" He's frowning, Ben tightens his grip around the steering wheel. Now or never.

"They're yours." He says, the twist in his chest worsening as he does, Kylo's confusion grows, along with his irritation, he doesn't want to play whatever game Ben's trying to start.

"They're mine, what?" He asks, his voice tense as Ben takes a needlessly sharp turn back onto road, the windscreen wipers whirr as he tries not to scream his next words.

"You're their father." He feels like he's back in the thick of war, carnage and destruction and no hope of getting out alive. Kylo feels like his whole world has been torn away. He cries and shakes his head. No way would he let Ben start the mind games again not when -

"Ben - " His voice is snarl-like, Ben shakes his head and looks at him for the first time since he had spoke, his eyes just as broken and Kylo's.

"Don't argue, I know." Ben snaps. Kylo's stunned into silence, his head races and gets mangled in ugly lies and truths just as hideous.

"There's no way you can - " He starts, unsure if he means to deny what he's saying or what he's revealing.

"Leo acts like you - " His voice breaks and he hits the steering wheel with his fist, he doesn't want to have this conversation, Kylo watches him with silence.

"Like us - " Kylo starts, trying to rationalise and minimise.

"No, it's different, Milo's crazy just like you. Leo loves everything to do with baking, with nature, she says all the crazy shit you said when we were kids. They're your kids, Kylo." Ben's staring at the road ahead of them, ignoring Kylo as he tried to process his brothers revelation.

"Leia's mine," Ben continues, talks like they're having a conversation.

"She's calm and Rey doesn't look sad every time I hold her." The statement makes Kylo flinch, guilt and shame roll around inside of him, he hates that he's done this to his brother.

"Ben - " There's nothing he can say, nothing he can do to change any of this.

"I'm their dad but so are you, come over on Friday's. Bring Hux." He says it like there's no argument to have, no discussion. It's final.

"I don't know what to say, I - " Ben shakes his head and slows the car to a stop, they're outside the house. He looks at his brother.

"Then don't, just come over Fridays, bring Rey flowers or a new sketchbook, she only uses the ones you give her." They smile a little at that last detail. Rey Palpatine, the girl of their wildest dreams. Ben exhales slowly as the front door opens, Rey standing in the doorway. Waiting.

"Thank you." Kylo says, his voice quiet. Ben looks back at him, puts his hand to his cheek and studies his face.

"We're family, brothers." He drops his hand and undoes his seat belt, moves to get out into the pouring rain.

"Brothers." Kylo murmurs as he follows him through the rain back into the house, Han's back.

He's drinking scotch in the kitchen, Rey takes their hands into her own, they go inside, to grieve as a family.


End file.
